


Fuzzy Hopes

by oxymoronassoc



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 13:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11232192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoronassoc/pseuds/oxymoronassoc
Summary: "One can never have enough socks." - Albus DumbledoreMcGonagall opens her Christmas gifts.Originally written 8.28.05





	Fuzzy Hopes

The slick paper is crisp and crackles invitingly as Minvera’s hands squeeze the package gently, sighing as it gives. Every year, the same thing. There is no name on the gift, but she knows who it’s from. Every year, for ten years, she has been receiving the same gift, from the same giver. She meticulously unwraps the gift anyway, letting the red paper with its dancing, gaudily decorated green trees fall to the floor unnoticed as she looks at what was unveiled. It is not, as expected, a warm pair of fuzzy woolen socks such as the pair peeping out from beneath her tartan dressing gown and flannel nightdress, but instead is a Muggle tee-shirt that has been rolled up. She unrolls it, staring at with vague confusion. It is for a Muggle theme park, that silly one with the mouse, and she wonders why her gift-giver would give her such a thing. Then she notices the curled note within, and discovers it is a gift from her second cousin, not her anonymous sock giver. Disappointment curls in her breast as she continues to open the handful of gifts that appeared under the small potted pine she keeps watered but never remembers to decorate. 

The pile is gone and the paper folded neatly and placed into the bin, and still there are no socks. She sighs sadly, wondering why she even thought to hope, abandoning the knickknacks that sit upon her sofa as she goes to her desk, sitting down behind it and picking up the slim, wrapped, unaddressed present upon it. It has been sitting there some weeks and she’s not even sure why she wrapped it or even kept it. Habit, she supposes, gently peeling the sellotape from the plain gold and white striped wrapping paper. Unwrapped, she holds a leather-bound book in her hands. Minerva smiles sadly at it, remembering the long hours she spent searching for just this book, and opens the cover, reading what she wrote inside in long, precise strokes. "Albus, I put much thought into this gift, as much as I know you put into yours. M." It makes her already heavy heart feel heavier and so she closes the book, placing it deep beneath the contents of one of the desk drawers so she might not run across it accidentally, so she might pretend that the pain flaring inside her has been soothed over the past months.


End file.
